A Foray Into Point-and-Click Adventure Games: The Good & The (Very) Bad

Maybe it was that I just didn’t have the patience to play them and that I was a console kid, but point-and-click adventure games simply seemed like relics of the past to me. While I had friends who would talk to me about the wonders of the Monkey Island series or how great Grim Fandango was, I always equated them with those text-based adventures like Hugo III: Jungle of Doom! and its ilk. That meant, to my mind, that they would most likely be immensely frustrating and I would just stick with my platformers, thank you very much.

My first real foray into point-and-click adventures started out poorly. Have you heard of Deponia? I really, really hope you haven’t. It was the art style that drew me toward Deponia in the first place, and when I saw that people had favorably compared the game to Monkey Island, I thought I would check it out.

Right from the beginning, Deponia was despicable. You’re abusive to your ex-girlfriend and the princess who you need to save is named “Goal.”There are transphobic jokes where a character who is obviously meant to be a man dressed in women’s clothing flits between a grotesque falsetto and a low baritone. Every single line had the character’s voice crack as if the game was nudging me in the ribs to say, “Hey, let’s laugh at this person who’s different!” You also get to drug your ex-girlfriend and ogle her while she’s in the shower.

I could go on and on about how terrible the Deponia series is as a whole, but I think John Walker from Rock, Paper, Shotgunpretty much nailed it.

I was ready to give up on these adventure games completely. I tried Monkey Island and while it was cute enough, it didn’t quite grab me like I wanted it to.I tried The Cave (which isn’t really point-and-click, but probably should have been) and Anna, the latter of which was a lamentable mess of obtuse, keyboard-breaking puzzles. It looked like these type of adventure games just weren’t going to be my thing. Long live the platformer, said I, and picked up Whispering Willows on a whim.

It was as if the sky opened up above me and a single beam of light shined down upon my head. I cared about the characters, I was involved in the mystery, and I wanted to see how everything would play out. From there, I learned about The Cat Lady and its tortuously heavy atmosphere, but interesting dynamic between its two female leads. Maybe, I thought, just maybe I could give adventure games one more chance.

When adventure games are done right, they have clever puzzles that allow you to reveal more of an engaging story. There might not be an adrenaline surge that you would get from mowing down legions full of splicers or from running through a collapsing building while being chased by an arrogant jerk, but there’s something very satisfying about being clever enough to finish the game.

The problem is that they’re too often let down by their own mechanics. When the player has to revert to solving the puzzles in your game by rubbing whatever they have in their inventory against every object they can find, there’s probably a design flaw in there somewhere. The best point-and-click adventure games are the ones where you’re able to abandon purely pointing and clicking. Allowing for different kinds of movement or more interaction with the environment helps to bring these games to life.

So, are adventure games dead? Definitely not. Their traditional model might be breathing its last few labored breaths, but I honestly think it’s probably good to let them pass on. Yes, it’s sad, but keep in mind that if games like The Walking Dead and Life Is Strange had been conceptualized five years earlier than they were, they might have been point-and-click adventures. Valiant Hearts: The Great War and Whispering Willows just might have been platformers, too.

By mixing mechanics while keeping their focus fixed on telling engaging stories, many of the games I’ve mentioned have been gems in their own ways. Yes, there are always going to be games like Deponia which will have you cringing with every line of dialogue, or like Anna where the puzzles are nearly impossible, but for every one of those games, there’s one that’s brimming with personality and charm.

6 thoughts on “A Foray Into Point-and-Click Adventure Games: The Good & The (Very) Bad”

Deponia has to be one of the worst adventure games of recent times… the worst with no redeeming qualities. Terrible characters and dialogue. terrible story and it seems like they grabbed the worst mechanics and ideas from all around and then just crammed them in here.

I think the best I’ve played for a long time is Kentucky route zero. One of the most magical, quaint and surreal experiences I;ve had the pleasure of playing. Episodic and still waiting for more.

I only just finished playing through the first three episodes of Kentucky Route Zero. I’m still so befuddled and charmed by it that I’ll find myself thinking of it at random times. The surrealism is spot on.

Yeah, I had a lot of trouble playing Deponia. Even if I could somehow stomach the story, the puzzles had me just trying things on everything. Right from the beginning, Rufus was hard to stomach and he only got worse.

I ended up liking the first Deponia despite its issues. Not played later games in the series yet. The Cat Lady is amazing and I need to play it more, and I helped kickstart Whispering Willows but haven’t found time to play it. The original version of Anna was weak and confusing, but I found aspects of it compelling despite that. Heard the remake is better, but not tried yet.

I think it was a losing battle from the beginning with Deponia. I love adventure games, but the ones I like the best are ones that have puzzles which make sense to me. They don’t need to be easy, but I need to be able to reason them out. Deponia… I had trouble even doing that. So even if I could stomach the story, the puzzles are beyond me. If you do play the other ones, I’d be interested in hearing what you think!

The Cat Lady took me a little to get into (I had just finished trying to play Deponia and frustration levels were high), but it really took off for me in the hospital part. I don’t know how far you are, so I won’t say any more about it. I would really recommend the Whispering Willows! The ending was a little iffy for me, but it was for a very specific reason and the rest of the game is solid.

As for Anna, the remake is much better. I really liked some things the first one did, but I’ll openly admit that I played it with a walkthrough open. The atmosphere is better in the second one too.

I should also probably finish/restart Downfall. By the same guy as The Cat Lady, and I believe a character from Downfall appears in that game as well. Also really liked The Longest Journey, but afraid to ever play it again because it took over my life — actually, I tend to have that response to point and click adventure games in general, but especially that one.